Companies are organizations that create goods which are sold to customers. Periodically, the goods sold can develop problems. To address these problems, companies have a customer support team that includes a help desk capable of answering questions over the phone and technicians that travel out to the customer to perform services at the customer site. These scheduled visits are called service appointments.
On a typical workday, a technician can have multiple service appointments lined up throughout the day. Each service appointment can differ from one another. For example, each service appointment can be for a different customer. Different customers can have different service plans and thus expect different levels of service from the technician. Furthermore, each service appointment can be to perform a different type of service on different types of goods. As a result, a different skillset may be needed for each service appointment. For these reasons, the technician needs to spend time reviewing the details of the service appointment beforehand. The review time required may be extended if the technician needs to review service manuals before reaching the service appointment in order to refresh his knowledge on a particular good. This is especially true if the company offers a wide range of goods. Depending on the service appointments, a technician may need anywhere from a few minutes to an hour to prepare for a given service appointment.